16. Tainted Sunlight
Tainted Sunlight
I will leave a piece of her for you.
Just a piece.
For my pitiable prison.
At the fringes of the Penance Stair, outside the boundaries of the Jade Lattices, I stand beside my Sokar in preparation for the Turning of the Mirrors.
From these marble stairs, we will descend together and lead a Procession through the city, allowing the People to witness their Resh'Agar and his Sovereign Star attend to the Mirror Shafts in celebration of the Cycle of Growth.
To oversee the High Priests and mages as they turn the mirror gears.
To let sunlight back into the city after Cycles of oppressive darkness.
I look past this organized chaos, focusing on the Reskala stationed at the edges of the golden path. Their glowing white eyes inspect the surroundings, searching for threat, for anything out of place. For Solutus. My Second, Thrassus, stands beside me, following the direction of my gaze.
‘The heretics would not dare attack during the Turning,’ he signs.
But he is wrong. This is the perfect stage for their rebellion. The Turning only happens once a year, what better spectacle than to foil the ceremony that will return sunlight to a city trapped in frost and silence?
“Bring another company of Elites,” I instruct Thrassus. “I want two following at pace at every break in the Procession. One mage at the center of each line, ready to mitigate a blast.”
You are right to prepare, Auryn’s gentle voice ghosts through the Bond. The Solutus do not attack blindly, but always with purpose. Always to undermine the Doctrine in the eyes of the People.
Not this day, I swear to her. Stay close to me, starlight.
She takes a step towards me, curling her small hand into Morvane’s gap at the crease of my elbow. My runes flare in response to her touch, the Bond spiraling between us.
Worry not, my Resh’Agar. I will let no harm come to you.
A smile tugs at my mouth, but I do not indulge it. She is trying to distract me with her sweet mischief, but her hand is too warm.
You are worse today.
You fuss too much, my love. I am alright.
Her lie is playful, but a lie nonetheless. She steadies her breathing before sending the thought. Slight tremors move through her fingers where they rest upon my arm. To anyone else the movement might appear insignificant, but her discomfort is a shout through our Bond.
Her fever radiates between us in slow pulses of heat, bleeding through my ribs and into my lungs. Morvane registers the change as well; the armor along my arm grows warmer beneath her fingers, responding to the rising temperature of her body.
To the watching city she appears composed beyond reproach, her posture perfect, her face smoothed into the lines of the Sokar’s visage.
The gown she wears falls around her like poured light, white silk threaded with fine strands of gold that catch the glow of the torch lines along the avenue.
A diadem rests upon her brow; its delicate rays flaring outward like frozen starlight.
She looks as if she belongs to the heavens themselves.
At the heart of Krystopolis, the Onyx Horn signals the start of the procession, the bellow shaking the ground like an earthquake.
None of the Attendants or Crafters stumble.
Some readjust the plugs in their ears to keep from going deaf as the Horns blare two more times.
A light ward around the Procession protects those within from the sound.
Shall we?
Let us bring light to the People.
I am ready to see the sun. Is it strange that I feel such excitement? Though I suppose it is because I am here with you.
I would rather be on the Moores, laying in the grass with you beside me.
You enjoyed my stories, I see.
Always.
We turn to face one another. I lean down, pressing my lips to her cheek as the Doctrine expects. I linger longer than protocol demands, rebelling. Breathing in the scent of floral oils and parchment. Relishing this moment.
One breath.
Then another.
And when I stand tall and face the People, I am once more Resh’Agar.
The city bows as we pass, citizens of every Role and station pressing their foreheads to the ground. The chokers at their necks are dim, for now, stifling any voice that might cry out ahead of the scheduled performance.
The golden path unfolds before us like a field of wheat bending beneath a steady wind.
Entire streets sink toward the ground as Auryn and I move through the districts of Krystopolis.
Han first, the District of Trade in the Commons, full of rows of forges, looms, bakeries, and market stalls.
Then Varrow, the Military Quarter in the Rising.
The Illiri District in the Flowe contains only laboratories and Lifegiver towers. Young girls emerge in groups dressed in bright red robes. Their Minders attend to them, letting them gasp at the sight of us and catch the falling petals from the skies.
Last is Selen, the beating heart of the Crystal City, standing proud on the highest lattice.
Home to the Prismatum and all of the largest temples dedicated to the Doctrine.
We wind through rows of High Priests and their apprentices, some holding candles in their hands, so enthralled they do not flinch when the wax spills and burns their hands.
Elsewhere in the city, the architecture rises from gold and obsidian, sharp-edged and martial in its design.
Here, the structures soften into smoothed black marble and luminous stone; temples carved directly into the walls of the Daesa Major in ascending terraces climbing toward the cavern's roof.
Thousands of prayer lamps burn within niches and balconies, their small flames mirrored endlessly in polished surfaces.
The entire district glows with quiet reverence.
The Onyx Horns stand at the center of the Selen district plaza—monuments of carved black crystal rising taller than the surrounding towers.
Their throats open toward the cavern sky, and as we cross each boundary, the hornkeepers draw breath through the massive instruments, releasing another below to signal our arrival.
I keep my gaze forward.
Ceremony demands stillness.
Ceremony demands perfection.
Before us rise the Mirror Shafts.
Even after centuries of seeing them, the scale of the structures still steals a fragment of breath from my lungs.
Two colossal pillars descend from the distant opening of the Surface far above us, plunging through the Daesa Major’s ceiling like spears of glass and steel.
Within the shafts, thousands of mirrored plates wait in layered alignment, each one angled to capture the sunlight of the world above and carry it downward into the depths of the Endless Dark.
For months they have reflected nothing.
The Cycle of Ice required it.
Now, the city waits for their awakening.
The marble base surrounding the shafts fills with priests and mage-artificers.
They gather around the great turning mechanisms, some wielding focus rods, others only prayer.
The gears themselves are enormous—interlocking rings of aethersteel rising higher than a man’s head, their teeth carved with ancient sigils meant to distribute the strain of the mirrors above.
As Auryn and I approach, every priest in the plaza drops to one knee.
“Rise,” I command.
My voice carries easily across the marble.
They obey at once.
Auryn studies the mechanisms with sharp, analytical focus. Her attention shifts through the Bond—the same spark that ignites whenever she encounters a problem waiting to be solved.
I have commented on this before, but this entire structure is flawed.
I almost smile.
The ceremony?
The engineering. The leylines at the base are expected to pull on the entire chain of gears, but the higher the mana travels from the mages, the thinner it is. There is simply not enough force.
Her gaze moves across the control rings where the mages stand ready to cast.
Six mages to regulate the rotation of a single gear. The energy loss alone is absurd.
I keep my eyes forward.
Careful, I reply. The Priests already speak against you with enthusiasm.
Her response carries the faintest trace of dry amusement.
And yet I still worry about their health.
Your compassion is profoundly inconvenient for them.
One of the leading High Priests raises his staff.
‘Your Quintessence,’ he signs. ‘We await your command.’
I step forward until the immense gears loom above me. Morvane hums as the runes along my spine awaken, reacting to the dormant magic coiled within the machinery.
“Begin the Turning.”
My command moves through the plaza like a dropped stone through water.
Six mages step forward and place their hands upon the control rings. Runes ignite beneath their palms, flooding the engraved channels with light as they feed power into the ancient mechanism.
The gears answer with a deep metallic groan. The grating sound rolls outward through the Endless Dark like a living thing, striking the stone vaults of the cavern ceiling and returning again in thunderous echoes that ripple through the city.
One by one, the massive rings begin to rotate. Above us, the mirrors shift by fractions of a degree, adjusting their alignment toward the unseen sun far above the surface opening.
The movement must remain slow. Too much light at once would blind the city after months of darkness.
Auryn watches the mechanism for several long moments before speaking again.
This could be completed in minutes.
And half the population would walk into walls for a week. Or lose their sight entirely.
Only if the mirrors remain unwarded. If there was a filter—
I am about to answer when the sound begins.
It starts as a faint vibration beneath my boots.
The nearest gear screams.
The shriek of metal rips through the plaza with enough force to make several priests flinch backward. One of the outer gears jerks violently as the alignment ring lurches out of balance.
“Hold it!” I shout.
The gear spins faster.
Another group of mages throw their strength into the control rings, runes blazing as they attempt to restrain the sudden surge of motion with their magic.
But it is not enough.
The mechanism runs away from them.
If the mirrors shift too quickly the full blaze of the surface sun will crash through the shafts all at once.
I look to Thrassus, standing some distance away. “Guide the Reskala. Secure the perimeter.”
He understands without elaboration. This feels like sabotage, and it could mean Solutus are near. Trusting he will carry out my command, I step forward. The Priests scatter before me, and Vargrún stirs at my nape.
Sheep before a wolf. Look at their frightened eyes.
Morvane responds the moment I raise my hand. The runes along my arm ignite in deep blue light, and cold threads of magic spill outward from my palm like strands of lightning woven from shadow.
The lines strike the gear.
The entire mechanism shudders…
Stops.
The silence in the wake of it is absolute.
Auryn moves beside me, the living flame of her aura brushing against my side. She studies the halted mechanism for only a moment before lifting a hand.
“There.”
I follow her gaze. A narrow fracture runs along one of the inner braces where a protective ward has worn thin over years of strain.
The ward lattice has degraded. The pressure from the mirror’s weight was too much even for the aethersteel to bear.
I catch her wrist before she can move closer.
Do not overextend.
The fever surges through the Bond again, sharper this time. She meets my eyes.
You worry too much.
I worry precisely enough.
For a moment neither of us moves.
She nods and steps forward. The Priests watch her with wariness and trepidation, awe for their Resh’Agar melting into contempt as she walks closer.
White-gold magic gathers around her hands. When she touches the damaged brace, the metal glows, hissing and whining as her power bends it to her will. The fracture softens beneath her mana.
You’re melting aethersteel.
She doesn’t break eye contact with the gears.
No. Merely helping it remember how it flowed once through the heart of this world.
She draws the broken edges together, light flowing through the seam. The old ward dissolves, and a new one forms in its place, its pattern cleaner and stronger than the original design.
When she steps back, the gear stands whole again.
I release the binding magic. The gears resume their slow turning.
Minutes pass.
The first beam of sunlight spills down through the Mirror Shafts. It pours into the cavern like liquid dawn.
Morvane hums against my skin. The armor plates warm along my spine as the ancient enchantments within the metal drink in the returning light. Around us, the entire Selen District brightens as the mirrors above catch the growing blaze of the Surface sun.
For the first time in months, Krystopolis breathes beneath radiant daylight.
The Onyx Horns roar in celebration, the sound crashing through the district like a colossal wave.
The People rise, the emerald jewels on their chokers lighting up. Freeing their voices.
Thousands begin chanting at once.
“Resh! Resh!”
The sound strikes the marble like a hammer.
“Resh! Resh! Resh!”
The chant grows louder with every breath.
I stand beside Auryn, motionless, the weight of Morvane steady across my shoulders as the city calls to their deity.
The rhythm changes.
At first, only a few voices chant in dissonance.
“Sokar!”
Then more join.
“Sovereign!”
The sound spreads outward through the crowd like fire through dry grass.
“Sokar! Sovereign!”
“Sokar! Sovereign!”
Auryn goes very still beside me. The chant grows louder with every heartbeat. Within the Bond, her emotions churn—surprise first, then unease.
I keep my mask in place as I turn to look at the Priests. They wave their hands, signing furiously, trying to dim the jewels on the crowd’s necks to silence them. But they are drained from the Turning. They do not have the mana to pivot the spell so quickly.
Deep beneath the surface calm of my thoughts, a colder realization forms.
The city is beginning to understand what she is.
And when that understanding spreads far enough…
She will break, Iridias.
Heed me. It will come to pass.
Let down your walls.
Let me roam free.
When I bathe in this city’s blood, I will leave a piece of her for you.
I will give you her eyes as a gift.
For your loyalty.
For being my prison for so long.